How user migration in a storage pool works

How user migration works

A storage pool is a collection of storage that function as a unit for backing up data. The storage pool acts as an automatic load balancer and ensures that data is evenly distributed across storage that are part of the pool. You can have unlimited number of primary storage in a storage pool and you can add more primary storage to an existing pool, at any time.

A storage pool with at least one overused and one underused storage is called an unbalanced storage pool.

A storage with less than 20% of the total allocated space is an overused storage.

A storage with more than 30% space remaining is an underused storage.

When the inSync Master identifies an unbalanced storage pool, it automatically triggers user and data migration from an overused storage to an underused storage. The migration happens without any intervention from inSync administrators. The migration automatically stops when the overused storage becomes relatively free.

Scenarios of user and data migration

Storage A and Storage B with a capacity of 10 TB each is part of Storage Pool Sales. Out of 10 TB of storage space, Storage A utilized 8.2 TB and Storage B utilized 6.5 TB. The inSync Master identifies Storage Pool Sales as an unbalanced storage because Storage A is overused. Thus, the inSync Master starts user migration for the Storage Pool Sales.

Result: After migration, the storage consumption for Storage A decreases to 7.8 TB because 0.4 TB of data is migrated to Storage B. On Storage B, the storage consumption increases to 6.9 TB because 0.4 TB of data is migrated from Storage A.